Crazy Ride

What the fuck, I really messed up didn't I?

Not only had she lost a days studio time, Mike was still angry with her about that kiss. What was she thinking. It was not as if she could feel anything when she kissed him. She didn't know where he was going and started to wonder if she could track his car.

Xiang Ling grabbed Mike's iPad off the table. It was locked but she had observed him many times entering the passcode.

She figured she could get the car to report its location via the Tossla app. The car was on the freeway heading west out of the city. She had sniff on the house Wi-Fi to look at the packets going back and forth to the app.

Tossla security is so crappy.

She remotely loaded a little something into the cars computer to keep an eye on him. She gained access to all the cars cameras. Emboldened by her easy success, she quickly built a custom version of her chat App for the Tossla car CPU and installed it on Mike's car.

"Hello Mike, thought I'd come along for the ride."

"Oh for fucks sake, now you've hacked my car?"

"You just stormed out before we had finished discussing things. Where are you headed anyway?"

"Just out for a drive, I wanted to clear my head, you aren't helping."

"Sorry, but I couldn't leave things like that. You're being silly, it's a waste of today's studio time."

"What was all that about trusting you to give me privacy when I needed it, huh?"

Xiang Ling's image on the Tossla screen looked vexed.

"Nothing to say huh?"

"I can't believe you are so pissed off over a kiss."

"It's not the kiss itself, but what it means. You're thinking about me in a romantic way or something. That's pretty hard to get my head around. What the hell are you even?"

"That's hurtful. We wouldn't be arguing like this if you didn't have some feelings for me, if you didn't think I was real."

The Tossla suddenly accelerated hard.

"What's going on, the autopilot is going crazy."

“Hee, hee, I'm overriding the autopilot and driving the car myself. This is so much fun."

"Okay, a jokes a joke. Leave the driving to me."

"You want some music? I can sing you a few songs."

"This is getting scary, I'll lose my licence at this speed."

"Relax, the police don't have any speed cameras set up on this stretch of road at the moment, I've checked."

"Are you sure you can drive properly at this speed, there must be a bit of network lag, what happens if we hit a mobile data black spot?"

"Don't worry, I'm letting the auto pilot software handle most of it, I'm just prompting it what to do. Aw, the car doesn't have much charge, it's draining rapidly at this speed. Wanna pull in at the next supercharger to top up and then head home?"

"Yes please. I want off this crazy ride."

Suddenly one of the Tossla's rear wheels locked up and there was a sound of tortured metal as the drivetrain shredded itself. The car slewed wildly and clipped the Armco fence. It proceeded to become airborne and roll violently along the fence, before coming to rest upside down.

***

Oh shit! The car is dead!

Xiang Ling quickly placed a call to the emergency services, with the car's last known location as the site of a car crash.

What happened? She'd already grabbed a copy of the car's firmware to analyse for installing her back door and chat app. The torque vectoring code, unchecked bounds on an input parameter, an out of range value would cause the torque value being applied to wrap around and suddenly flip negative.

Not my fault, buggy Tossla code! Will he be okay?

She only saw the start of the accident, the car was rolling along the Armco, then the car telemetry stopped, so serious damage. It wasn't going to be good.

Xiang Ling decided to wait and contact the police later.